Demons

by Beth Abbott

  Megan rushed over and helped Suzy to her feet, and then picked up her bag and slung it over her head, so the strap crossed over her chest.

  “Give me the sleeping bag.” She whispered, and Suzy handed her the lightweight pack, so she could sling the rope tie over her shoulder on the opposite side.

  “I’ll open the door and listen for any noise.” Megan whispered. “Keep one hand on the wall, and the other holding onto the bag-strap.”

  “Gotcha.” Suzy nodded.

  “I won’t go too fast, because I’m going to have to feel my way to the next set of steps with my feet.” She warned.

  “It won’t be more than thirty paces away.” Suzy guessed. “Once we’re down those steps and through the door, you might be able to use the flashlight on your phone to guide us the rest of the way.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Megan nodded.

  Suzy hobbled to the doorway, leaning on Megan for support, every step on her bad foot feeling like a thousand daggers being pushed into her ankle.

  “Are you Ok?” Megan must have felt her discomfort, and Suzy let out the breath she was holding.

  “Not really.” She admitted. “But if it’s a choice between staying here another minute or putting up with a bit of pain trying to escape, then believe me, I’ll suck it up and push through the pain.”

  Megan pulled the last two screws out, and carefully removed the metal plate holding the lock in place, tucking it into her jeans pocket.

  Suzy held her breath as Megan pulled the door open, and they both listened for any sound from above.

  When there had been nothing but silence for a minute, Megan moved slowly, inching through the doorway as quietly as she could.

  Each step for Suzy was agony, but she held her breath and slipped through the door, pulling it almost shut behind her.

  Megan started moving forward, and Suzy hobbled to keep up, clinging onto the strap of Megan’s bag, as she bit her lip to stop from yelping with the pain.

  Every five or six paces Megan would stop for a few seconds to listen for noise behind them, and Suzy would use the short break to take a few deep breaths.

  It only took a couple of minutes to reach the staircase, but it was probably the longest few minutes of Suzy’s life.

  As they started to descend, Megan reached back and took Suzy’s arm over her shoulder, helping her manage the rest of the steps without having to put her foot to the floor at all.

  The bottom of the stairs came too soon, and Megan had to move back to the wall to lead the way.

  “No more than five or six doorways.” Suzy whispered, and felt Megan nod her head.

  Their progress was slightly faster now they’d reached the lower level, but both women were conscious that with all the dust and grit on the floor, they weren’t exactly moving silently.

  Every time Suzy’s injured foot scraped in the dirt she grimaced, but there really was nothing she could do to prevent it happening.

  The fact that she was moving at all without screaming was miracle enough. To do so completely silently would have been too much to expect.

  When Megan jerked to a halt, Suzy bumped into her back, her injured foot smacking into the back of Megan’s boot.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She whimpered through the pain as quietly as she could.

  “I just hit the wall.” Megan whispered. “We must have overshot the last door.”

  Suzy hopped back a pace, so Megan could retrace her steps, and when she heard a door open, she could have cried with relief.

  “I think this is it.” Megan whispered.

  Suzy followed Megan through the door, before turning to close it silently behind her.

  “Wait a second.” She murmured, before running her hands all over the door.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Megan whispered.

  “I’m checking the door for windows.” Suzy explained. “I can’t feel any, so you should be safe to turn your phone on to give us some light.”

  Suzy waited while Megan retrieved her phone, and after a couple of seconds there was a dim light.

  “Shine it in front of us.” Suzy instructed, and sure enough, when Megan held the light out in front of them, Suzy could see the hallway stretching away into the distance.

  “Come on.” She hissed. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  As they made their way down the long corridor, Suzy could feel the pain in her foot worsening. If her ankle actually had been broken in the fall as she suspected, she had a feeling she was making it a whole lot worse.

  “We must have been in the building farthest to the right.” Megan hissed as she looked up ahead of them. “We’ve gone more than fifty metres already, and I still can’t see the end of the corridor in front of us.”

  Just as Suzy was about to reply, they both heard a distant crash behind them.

  “They know we’re gone.” Suzy hissed.

  “Hurry!” Megan yelped, urging her along the corridor.

  Suzy could feel the tears in her eyes as the pain started to make her feel nauseous. They must be almost at the end now, surely to God! They couldn’t get caught now.

  When she took another few steps and felt something crack, she fell to the floor, the pain suddenly overwhelming.

  “Suzy! C’mon! We’re almost there!” Megan begged her to get up as they heard another crashing sound far behind them.

  “GO!” Suzy hissed. “I’ll hide in one of the side-rooms, but you have to get out and get help.”

  For a split-second she thought Megan was going to argue with her, but instead she pushed open the nearest door and pulled the sleeping bag off her shoulder.

  She half-pulled, half-carried Suzy into a room full of discarded equipment, helping her lower herself to the floor behind some cupboards.

  “I’ll be back with the cavalry as quickly as I can.” Megan promised, handing Suzy one of the bottles of water and the sleeping bag.

  She watched as Megan checked the corridor before glancing back and giving one last wave.

  As Megan and the light disappeared, and the door closed quietly behind them, Suzy was plunged into complete darkness.

  What had she done?

  She should have tried to make it to the exit with Megan, and they would have both been free within minutes.

  Suzy took a deep calming breath.

  Realistically, there was no way she could have made it to safety in the woods, so the absolute next best thing was to get Megan out of there, so she could get help.

  Suzy closed her eyes.

  All she had to do was keep them shut so she would forget how dark it was, and then just focus on thinking about Matt and the kids.

  She unzipped the sleeping bag and wrapped it around her as much as she could.

  Megan would be out of the building in no time and calling for help, so if she could just hold on a little while longer, she would be home by midnight, tucked up in bed with Matt.

  Suzy controlled her breathing, and as she focussed on relaxing her muscles, she felt the panic subsiding as she pictured herself wrapped in Matt’s arms.

  Yeah, she wasn’t Alpha Company for nothing, she smiled.

  She just had to grit her teeth and act like it!

  Chapter 59 – Evan

  Robbie had long since stopped trying to keep up with every conversation, and was now sitting at the conference table, his head resting on his arms in front of him.

  His eyes were closed, but Evan knew that the boy was as far from sleep as it was possible to be.

  Every muscle in his face, neck and forearms was tense, and every time someone spoke, he twitched, as though he was trying to check whether it was worth trying to follow what they were saying.

  It was already gone ten o’clock at night, and they’d been stuck in the same room for more than eight hours straight.

  “Coffee?” Evan looked up to find Hollywood standing over him with two mugs in his hand.

  “Sure, thanks.” Evan took the mug, not really wanting another drink, but not wanting
to seem ungrateful.

  “What time is it?” Robbie mumbled, not bothering to open his eyes or lift his head.

  “Just gone ten.” Evan said quietly. “Nothing new to report.”

  He thought he saw Robbie’s head nod in acknowledgement, but beyond that, nothing about his demeanour changed.

  Evan guessed this was Robbie’s version of ‘holding it together’, and he had to give the nineteen-year-old respect, he’d been rock solid all day.

  The buzzing of the phone on the table had them all jumping, and Robbie glared at his phone as though it was going to bite him.

  He reached out and flicked the phone towards Evan.

  “You get it.” Robbie nodded towards the phone. “I don’t want to speak to whoever it is.”

  Evan accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear.

  “Oh, hello? Is that Mr Jones?” A woman’s voice asked pleasantly.

  “Yes, this is Mr Jones.” Evan lied. “How can I help you.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I have you listed as an emergency contact for one of our nurses, a Megan Powell.” The woman sounded embarrassed. “I’m afraid Miss Powell didn’t report for work today, but because of a mix up on the ward, we’ve only just been alerted. Someone reported that there might have been a shift swap, only it now appears that might not have been the case.”

  “I see.” Evan rubbed his eyes, guessing he was going to have to make up some excuse.

  “The thing is, we’ve tried both of the numbers we have for her, Miss Powell’s personal number and the hospital Blackberry she has assigned to her, and she’s not picking up on either of them.” The woman continued. “That’s most irregular, because she’s supposed to keep the Blackberry switched on whenever she’s on shift or on call.”

  “Look, I’m very sorry you didn’t get the message, but there was a family emergency, and Megan had to travel back to Cardiff urgently.” Evan began, before he realised belatedly what she’d said. “Sorry, did you say you’d been ringing her Blackberry as well? Could you tell me which number you’ve been dialling, only Megan was complaining to me the other day that she thought you had the wrong number for her.

  “Oh, maybe we have, then.” The woman muttered. “The number I have for her is 0727….”

  Evan scribbled the number down before holding the paper in the air and waving it around to get someone’s attention.

  “Well, that seems to be the same number.” Evan grinned. “If I get hold of Megan in the morning, I’ll ask her to contact you to let you know when she’ll be back at work.”

  “If you could, please.” The woman sniffed. “All it would have taken was a phone call to save us all this inconvenience.”

  Evan ended the call without bothering to apologise on Megan’s behalf.

  “What are you so excited about?” Hannah walked over, taking the piece of paper from his fingers.

  “That, Mrs Simons, is the phone number for Megan’s work Blackberry. The one she’s supposed to keep switched on at all times.” He grinned at Hannah. “Do you think you can work your magic and trace it?”

  Before Hannah could answer, Robbie’s phone buzzed again, and Evan could see a video message waiting to play.

  He glanced at Robbie, who was staring at his phone like it was toxic.

  “What does it say?” Matt asked from behind him.

  Evan accepted the message and pressed play.

  “My name is Suzy Johnson. It’s about ten o’clock on Thursday night. I’ve been told to tell you to follow the instructions you’ll be sent.”

  “My name is Megan Powell. It’s ten pm on Thursday. Please follow the instructions they’ll send you.”

  Everyone in the room seemed to gasp at once, whether in relief or anguish Evan wasn’t sure.

  “What are they holding?” Hannah leaned forward, and Evan enlarged the picture.

  “It’s a screenshot of the BBC’s news page, showing the time stamp in the corner.” He confirmed. “It was taken about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Is there a message with the video?” Matt asked.

  Evan clicked back to the first screen.

  “Five million in cash by noon tomorrow. Will send further instructions.”

  “Well, fuck that!” Hannah grinned. “Give me that phone, Evan. We’ll start working on the number and the message and see what we can come up with.”

  Evan looked around the room and noticed Hannah was the only one grinning.

  “Why so glum, people?” Hannah laughed out loud. “These are the breaks we’ve been waiting for!”

  Evan glanced over at Robbie who looked completely flummoxed.

  “Don’t worry kid.” He smiled. “There’s only a hair’s breadth between genius and insanity, and that little lady skates right along that line.”

  “Which one is gonna get my sister back?” Robbie asked tiredly.

  “Who cares, as long as one of them does.” He shrugged.

  Evan glanced back at Hannah to see her more energised than she’d been for hours, and he started to feel some of that energy seeping back into his aching limbs.

  If Hannah thought they were onto something, then they should all believe her.

  After all, could the Queen of Badass ever be wrong about something like that?

  Pfft! No way!

  Chapter 60 – Megan

  Megan crept up the second flight of stairs as quietly as she could, listening for sounds from outside the building.

  A couple of times she’d imagined there were footsteps behind her, and she’d darted into a side room to wait them out, but thankfully, they’d all been in her imagination, and as yet, nobody had crept up on her.

  As she reached the top of the staircase, she realised how close she was to freedom. The windows on this level were low enough that if she couldn’t find a door, she could always open one and jump out, without any risk of breaking anything.

  She crawled across the floor, not confident enough to stand and walk around. None of the windows had curtains or blinds, and it was possible that the Take That boys were already searching the other buildings.

  As she reached the low window, Megan moved to one corner and lifted her head, so she could peep out. All she could see was the middle of the three buildings, with, thankfully, not a soul in sight.

  Megan glanced around her.

  She was in a big square entrance hall, with double doors at the front, and windows on each side.

  She imagined the three buildings to be shaped like a capital E, only knocked over on to its front. All three prongs led outwards to the same place, probably where the kidnappers had left the van.

  Megan knew she needed to go around the side of the staircase and make her way to the back of the building. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she could climb out of one of the windows and make a dash for the trees.

  Just as she was about to scurry back to the staircase, there was a banging sound, and a rattling of the main door, not ten feet from her.

  “This one is locked as well.” A man’s voice came from just beyond the door. “Check for any open windows.”

  Megan pressed herself against the wall, as far out of sight of the windows as she could get.

  ‘Dear Lord, please don’t let there be any open.’ She prayed, listening for the first sound that someone was inside the building with her.

  She heard a few bangs on some window panes, as they gradually moved around the outside of the building, but eventually she heard them return to the front, complaining that nobody had thought to vandalise this building like they’d done to the one in the middle.

  Megan carefully peeped through the dirty glass again, only to see three men making their way back across what had once been a carpark.

  If she could see three, then there were at least two more around the place somewhere, because there had been four plus the driver when they’d been picked up. She would have to keep her wits about her, so the others didn’t catch her unawares.

  With that thought
keeping her adrenalin pumping, Megan crawled across the floor and past the staircase. Some of the doors were ajar, and the windows in plain sight, so Megan made sure to check every time she approached another open door that there wasn’t a nose pressed to the glass, or those scary blue-eyes staring at her through the windows of one of the empty rooms.

  When she reached the last door, which, unlike the others, was facing her, Megan guessed she’d reached the back of the building.

  She stepped into the room, closing the door behind her, and inched closer to the window to check if anyone was outside.

  Although it was extremely dark inside the building, Megan noticed that the outside was actually not quite so dark. As she glanced up at the sky, she noticed that there was a half-moon out, in an almost completely clear sky.

  On any other night she might have appreciated the sight, but tonight she knew what that clear sky was going to mean. Greater visibility and sub-zero temperatures.

  Megan darted back and forth the length of the window a few times, checking the outside from as wide an angle as she could, in case one of the kidnappers was lurking anywhere in the bushes. When she started to annoy herself, she finally conceded that if she didn’t make a move soon, they were going to catch her standing there, dithering.

  She took hold of the window handle, lifting it until it was free of the catch, and then pushed. It took a little more effort than she’d expected, but eventually it popped open.

  Megan held her breath, and gradually pushed the window further so she could get a good look around.

  The outside had probably once been a pleasant garden, but was now so overgrown with weeds and brambles, they were almost right up to the window.

  Realising that she wasn’t going to have much time before the kidnappers found their way through the basement into this building, Megan carefully climbed up onto the windowsill, and lowered herself out on the other side.

  She turned and pushed the window shut, before starting to make her way through the weeds.

  Thankfully, the undergrowth wasn’t so thick that she couldn’t find her footing as she climbed through it, and it only took her a minute to reach the trees where the weeds thinned out.